I frequently cut through the back roads when I ride back up from the coast. And for the last year or so, I’ve been watching a new building go up on the corner of Short Street and Entrada Drive.

I hadn’t been through there for a few weeks, though, so I was surprised to see the façade had gone up already. And even more surprised to see that it is either going to be the new headquarters for Harlequin Books, or it’s well on its way to being the ugliest new building in L.A.

A Republican running for governor in Colorado — home of the misguided and probably illegal Black Hawk bike ban — has uncovered the vast UN conspiracy behind bike share programs.

According to the Denver Post, Tea Party favorite Dan Maes has charged that popular Denver Mayor and fellow gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper is “converting Denver into a United Nations community.”

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”

“This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms,” Maes said.

The Mile High City is just one of over 1200 communities around the world in the ICLEI, an organization that professes to support the implementation of sustainable development at the local level. But thanks to Maes, we now know that it’s the hidden hand behind a conspiracy to infiltrate our country through the insidious facade of bicycling.

For anyone who may be harboring doubts, Maes made the connection clear.

“At first, I thought, ‘Gosh, public transportation, what’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what’s wrong with incentives for green cars?’ But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty,” Maes said….

“Some would argue this document that mayors have signed is contradictory to our own Constitution,” Maes said.

They’re on to us, comrades.

Clearly, motorists and Malibu officials have been justified in their hostility to bikes, as we represent the leading wave of a vast international conspiracy to subvert our nation and its wholesome American values. Like the God-given right to drive everywhere and run off the road any non-motorized users who happen to get in our way.

The conspiracy continues to spread, as Long Beach plans to have a bike share program in place by next spring. And a Modesto columnist asks “Is there any more lawless, arrogant and contemptuous group of citizens than these bikers?”

Following the lead of the Black Hawk bike ban, a Missouri county proposes banning bikes from any highway without a shoulder and many two lane roads; the state Department of Transportation says the law would be unenforceable.

From last week’s near-fatal allergy attack (that is, near-fatal in the sense that I felt like I was going to die, and wished I could just get it over with, already), to election campaigns in which the politics of fear and character assassination have replaced ideas hope — or compassion, for that matter.

Let alone trying to put together an email to raise funds for my brother’s dog sled team up in Alaska so he can compete in next year’s Iditarod, while simultaneously trying to find enough work to replace that new job that fell through last month.

Then there’s a part of me, as a former Colorado boy, that dies just a little every time I look out our window and see that familiar West L.A. skyline instead of snow-capped mountains.

So I put on a little Chris LeDoux — a genuine working cowboy and rodeo rider from just up the road in Wyoming who sang about, well, genuine working cowboys and rodeo riders, among other things — got myself together, and hopped onto my bike.

Or I might have been high up in the Colorado Rockies, riding through groves of golden aspen and breathtaking vistas, with the occasional deer or elk standing alongside the road. Sometimes I’d see a bear rise up on his hind legs to watch me go by, trying to figure out what the hell kind of spandex-clad creature I was. Or maybe just calculating whether he could catch me, and if I’d be better with mustard or a nice Bordeaux reduction.

But then I ran into yet another movie crew needlessly blocking the bike lane to protect their massive trucks from encroaching cyclists, and found myself jolted back to the mean streets of Los Angeles as I was forced to take a lane in heavy, impatient traffic.

But I ended my reveries feeling a little brighter, and hopeful that hope is still stronger than fear — even in an election year. And happy once again to be right here where I am, in this ongoing love/hate relationship with L.A.

And I know that if life gets to be too much, I can just hop in the saddle and ride off into the sunset.

From last week’s near-fatal allergy attack (that is, near-fatal in the sense that I felt like I was going to die, and wished I could just get it over with, already), to election campaigns in which the politics of fear and character assassination have replaced ideas hope — or compassion, for that matter.

Let alone trying to put together an email to raise funds for my brother’s dog sled team up in Alaska so he can compete in next year’s Iditarod, while simultaneously trying to find enough work to replace that new job that fell through last month.

Then there’s a part of me, as a former Colorado boy, that dies just a little every time I look out our window and see that familiar West L.A. skyline instead of snow-capped mountains.

So I put on a little Chris LeDoux — a genuine working cowboy and rodeo rider from just up the road in Wyoming who sang about, well, genuine working cowboys and rodeo riders, among other things — got myself together, and hopped onto my bike.

Or I might have been high up in the Colorado Rockies, riding through groves of golden aspen and breathtaking vistas, with the occasional deer or elk standing alongside the road. Sometimes I’d see a bear rise up on his hind legs to watch me go by, trying to figure out what the hell kind of spandex-clad creature I was. Or maybe just calculating whether he could catch me, and if I’d be better with mustard or a nice Bordeaux reduction.

But then I ran into yet another movie crew needlessly blocking the bike lane to protect their massive trucks from encroaching cyclists, and found myself jolted back to the mean streets of Los Angeles as I was forced to take a lane in heavy, impatient traffic.

But I ended my reveries feeling a little brighter, and hopeful that hope is still stronger than fear — even in an election year. And happy once again to be right here where I am, in this ongoing love/hate relationship with L.A.

And I know that if life gets to be too much, I can just hop in the saddle and ride off into the sunset.

From last week’s near-fatal allergy attack (that is, near-fatal in the sense that I felt like I was going to die, and wished I could just get it over with, already), to election campaigns in which the politics of fear and character assassination have replaced ideas hope — or compassion, for that matter.

Let alone trying to put together an email to raise funds for my brother’s dog sled team up in Alaska so he can compete in next year’s Iditarod, while simultaneously trying to find enough work to replace that new job that fell through last month.

Then there’s a part of me, as a former Colorado boy, that dies just a little every time I look out our window and see that familiar West L.A. skyline instead of snow-capped mountains.

So I put on a little Chris LeDoux — a genuine working cowboy and rodeo rider from just up the road in Wyoming who sang about, well, genuine working cowboys and rodeo riders, among other things — got myself together, and hopped onto my bike.

Or I might have been high up in the Colorado Rockies, riding through groves of golden aspen and breathtaking vistas, with the occasional deer or elk standing alongside the road. Sometimes I’d see a bear rise up on his hind legs to watch me go by, trying to figure out what the hell kind of spandex-clad creature I was. Or maybe just calculating whether he could catch me, and if I’d be better with mustard or a nice Bordeaux reduction.

But then I ran into yet another movie crew needlessly blocking the bike lane to protect their massive trucks from encroaching cyclists, and found myself jolted back to the mean streets of Los Angeles as I was forced to take a lane in heavy, impatient traffic.

But I ended my reveries feeling a little brighter, and hopeful that hope is still stronger than fear — even in an election year. And happy once again to be right here where I am, in this ongoing love/hate relationship with L.A.

And I know that if life gets to be too much, I can just hop in the saddle and ride off into the sunset.

Evidently, there’s a flap over bicycling back in my hometown. Or rather, just outside it.

According to the League of American Bicyclists, Fort Collins, Colorado is officially a bike friendly city. But if an article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times is any indication, that friendliness doesn’t extend past the city limits.

Back in May of this year — evidently, news from Colorado still gets here by Pony Express — a couple of bicyclists from the nearby liberal bastion of Boulder committed the outrageous offense of riding into the county two abreast.

I know, I know, the horror of it all. Especially on a country road, where drivers are just as likely to be impeded by some farmer’s John Deere combine as by spandex-clad cyclists. And even though the state recently passed a law that even the bill’s sponsors say makes the practice legal in most situations.

But that’s not the way the local sheriff sees it. Taking interpretation of the law into his own hands, he’s decided that his reading of the statute overrides the authors’ intent. And as a result, he says it’s a violation to ride two abreast if it could possibly impede traffic — even if no cars are actually being impeded. Or even present, for that matter.

So what’s next? Meeting riders at the county line with fire hoses and police dogs?

Granted, the riders weren’t ticketed. But the message was clear. Obey the sheriff’s personal interpretation of the law — despite the lack of any court rulings in support of his stand — or stay the hell out of his county.

Now, I probably rode every square inch of that county when I lived there. And yes, I realize that the population has grown since I left, and there are more riders and drivers competing for the same amount of road space.

But if drivers can’t manage to peacefully co-exist on the kind of quiet country road John Denver used to rhapsodize about without the local sheriff taking sides, there is something seriously wrong.

He says that spandex makes people lose their sense of humor. I think maybe his badge is a little too tight.